Breaking Point
by Lindoreda
Summary: One of the first things I learned from living with Zexion was that immortals don't see time in the same way as the rest of us. He was fully prepared to outlast me. I just couldn't let him. Zemyx. AU. Zemyx day one shot!


AN: My Zemyx day one shot! There's still two hours left in Zemyx day, so this is still valid. I literally wrote this in four hours, but Niffstral approved it, so I hope you all enjoy. Here's my fantasy AU, Breaking Point.

Disclaimer: Don't own Kingdom Hearts, but ya'll know that by now.

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One of the first things I learned from living with Zexion was that immortals don't see time the same as the rest of us. Zexion told me right from the start (and every day for a couple of years) that he wasn't going to get attached to me, because I was only a temporary guest. Sure, to him this was all temporary. From my perspective, I was spending the rest of my life there. And unlike a guest, I couldn't just leave if I decided that my immortal, prickly, manipulative host really got on my nerves. No, for all intents and purposes, Zexion owned me.

This all goes back to my parents. They always wanted a child, but one or both of them was hopelessly infertile. They got so desperate that they promised their firstborn child to the first demon that offered to make them fertile.

So you see where Zexion and I come in. He granted their wish, and when that wish allowed me to be born, Zexion came to claim his promised prize. I had only just been born. It wasn't too hard for them to give me up, since they could just have another kid now, and it didn't hurt me too much to leave them.

The fact remains that I was sold to, and raised by, a demon. Under human law, Zexion didn't really own me, because not even parents owned their children. Those laws aren't really applicable in the demonic plane, though. In fact, cases like mine aren't all that uncommon in the demonic plane. What makes me unique there is that I'm the only human that Zexion has, and I'm the only one he's ever had.

That's probably why we fight. He just doesn't know how to deal with humans. He thinks we're weird, and he's always thought so. I really don't get why he bothered to take me in the first place.

I'm probably too calm about this. I mean, my parents sold me to a demon! But I've spent almost all of my life on the demonic plane, surrounded by demons and their occasional human pets/servants. The only humans I remember seeing belong to demons. I may be a human stuck in a plane I don't belong in, but it's not like I could go back, even if Zexion let me go one day. I don't understand normal humans any better than Zexion does. I don't know another way of living than as Zexion's background musician. Yup. That's what he uses me for, because "you can't do anything else without breaking something." So I provide Zexion's theme music. Clearly the fulfilling life that everyone dreams of. Well, it's easy work for me. I was born to play music, not to sweep floors and clean windows like most of the other humans in this plane.

I really don't know why demons keep humans for manual labor. We're weaker and less skilled than the weakest demon. Looking at it from Zexion's perspective, humans aren't really use-

"Demyx, journaling time is over," a sharp voice snapped, causing Demyx to straighten his spine and slam his journal shut.

"Sorry, I lost track of time," Demyx offered meekly, his heart hammering wildly at the demon's voice. Though Demyx had recently grown taller than the demon, he was still scared silly by Zexion coming up behind him without warning.

"I am not angry," Zexion replied indifferently, appearing suddenly on Demyx's left. His steps had been completely silent. "I am pleased that you can immerse yourself in writing, given your aversion to reading." Zexion's tone sounded anything but pleased, but Demyx knew that Zexion was relieved that his human pet wasn't a complete idiot. He was frequently convinced of the contrary.

"Soo…" Demyx trailed off hopefully. "I'll get more journaling time later?"

"If you manage to end the day without shattering some priceless artifact or spilling wine on a short-tempered noble," Zexion agreed with a faint note of amusement.

"I can do that," Demyx insisted. "You'll see!"

A shattered Ming vase and two attempted beheadings later, and Demyx was forced to admit defeat.

"You were expecting this, weren't you?" Demyx asked Zexion accusatorily.

"Of course," Zexion admitted calmly. "You haven't gone a single day since you learned to walk without breaking something more valuable than yourself. When you miraculously displayed an interest in writing, I wondered if perhaps something else had changed as well. Evidently you are still as careless as ever."

Demyx winced. As much as he tried to tell himself that he didn't care what Zexion thought of him, Zexion's words still had considerable bite. As far as Demyx could tell, he was also the only one that Zexion spoke to with such venom. Zexion was generally polite, though distant, to everyone, including the human pets of other demons. Only Demyx was treated with scorn, and so it had been since he'd met Zexion.

"However…" Zexion's voice brought Demyx abruptly back to the present. "Your interest in writing is the first piece of proof that your brain functions on a normal level. Journaling time shall continue each day after breakfast."

Demyx's generally impulsive nature had been largely suppressed by years and years of living with the much more reserved demon, but in this one moment it couldn't be held back. Demyx wrapped his arms tightly around Zexion, giving the demon a quick squeeze, before withdrawing in horror, realizing that he'd crossed a line. When he'd been younger he'd been allowed to touch Zexion out of necessity, but that had been forbidden for many years now. Zexion remained frozen in shock after Demyx released him, utterly unmoving in a way that only a demon could be.

"Sorry, Zexion," Demyx apologized hurriedly. "I got excited."

Zexion snapped out of his reverie, replacing shock with his usual cold detachment. "I know," was all he said before departing, leaving Demyx to get ready for bed.

Demyx however was feeling rebellious. He seated himself at his desk, got out his journal, and went back to writing.

I wonder if Zexion didn't get enough hugs when he was little, Demyx mused, describing his day to the journal. Then again, I don't know anything about how demons are raised, or if it differs from how humans are raised. I don't know if Zexion is normal, or if the way he treats me is normal. I don't know anything, do I? Demyx's hand stilled suddenly.

"I really am just a temporary guest," Demyx murmured.

Zexion found him a few hours later, sprawled over his desk and drooling onto his journal, as Demyx would find out at dawn when he awoke wearing a thick blanket and with his journal safely away from his face.

"You should try sleeping on your bed," Zexion suggested lightly from the doorway, making Demyx jump in his chair. "I gave it to you for that exact reason."

Demyx blushed, and was absolutely bewildered as to why. "I didn't mean to fall asleep at my desk."

"Evidently. But I suppose you won't need journaling time today, will you?" Zexion's tone had lost its calm lightness, and Demyx thought he detected a slight edge. If pushed, Zexion would turn that edge into a blade.

"No, I won't," Demyx conceded reluctantly, regretting his decision to rebel. He didn't want Zexion to be mad at him. Angry Zexion just made his already difficult life more difficult.

_Then why not end it? _The voice came into his head unbidden, startling Demyx out of his submissive line of thought. _Are you happy with this life? With having every aspect of it controlled by a capricious demon? Don't you ever want to be free?_

Am I happy? Demyx wondered, tucking his drool-soaked journal into the appropriate drawer. "Is there any reason for me to be alive?" Demyx spoke aloud without realizing it, attracting Zexion's attention immediately. "All these years I've just gone along with what everyone else decided, but I never stopped to think. Am I going to spend the rest of my life waking up when I'm told, eating when I'm told, sleeping when I'm told and playing music when I'm told? Is that all my life will ever be?"

"There is no meaning or purpose to life," Zexion replied quietly, alerting Demyx to the fact that he'd said all that aloud, "Except the one you make for yourself."

"And how am I supposed to do that? What purpose can my life ever have as your music slave?" Demyx spat, surprised at the venom in his voice.

"Weren't you born to play music?" Zexion asked in that same calm tone. "Do you not enjoy it?"

"Of course I enjoy it, but…" Demyx trailed off, the anger draining from his voice.

"But what?"

"But I… I'll always be alone," Demyx murmured sadly. "The only people I'll ever interact with will be you and anyone that visits you. I'll never see free humans. I'll never get married, or have a home and kids. I'll never be normal."

"You've never been normal," Zexion replied coolly, "And if that's what you want from your life, then I'm afraid I can't help you." The demon was halfway out of Demyx's room when he stopped, but didn't turn. "Stay in here today and cool your head." Then he locked the door, leaving Demyx to wonder yet again why Zexion treated him so differently from everyone else. He couldn't figure it out, so he turned to writing once again.

Demons have no power in the human realm, he wrote, unless they are summoned by a human, and contracted to do something. Under a contract, they can grant "eternal" youth, slay thousands of people, make an infertile couple fertile… pretty much whatever you want. And how does humanity pay for this borrowed power? With human lives. The number of lives depends on what you want the demon to do, and not everyone is worth the same amount. What happens to the people you sacrifice depends on the demon. Most demons eat the humans they receive, though there are some that keep large numbers of humans as pets, servants and sex-slaves. Then there are those like Zexion who, for no comprehensible reason, keep one or two to do odd jobs.

"I wonder how they treat their humans," Demyx mused, crossing out an illegible line. "I guess my life is probably better than the ones kept as sex-slaves…"

"Says the virgin," a cocky voice contradicted from the window.

Demyx turned upon hearing the redheaded demon, his brow wrinkled in disapproval. "Didn't Zexion say that the next time you came in through the window, he'd run an electrical current through the window frame?"

"Then don't tell him I came," the demon replied carelessly, waving off the concern. "Are you locked in here?"

Demyx's eyes found the floor in embarrassment. "Yeah…"

"He hasn't locked you in here since you were a kid! Is it because of the vase yesterday? That was totally my fault, and I'll tell him-"

"No, it's got nothing to do with that," Demyx assured the demon. "Axel… have you ever kept a human?"

"Nope," Axel replied easily. "Humans know better than to summon me, though. Areas I've been through don't tend to recover within a hundred years."

"Oh…"

"You sound pretty disappointed," Axel observed, maintaining his easy tone.

"Well, I wanted your advice about Zexion, but I guess you probably can't explain him any better than I can," Demyx explained mournfully.

"Has he been acting weird? He gets randomly moody from time to time-"

"No, it's not that. I told him that I wanted to be normal, and he-"

"I hate to break it to you, but you've never been normal," Axel interrupted with a knowing smirk. "Your parents sold you to a demon even before you were conceived. You were raised by that demon, and only by him. The only other humans that you've ever known have been in much worse situations than you." Demyx tried to interrupt here, but Axel silenced him with a look. "I know you think Zex is tough to deal with, but he wants you to be happy or you'd be spending the rest of your life washing windows or keeping his bed warm."

At those last words, Demyx felt his heart briefly shudder to a halt. "Zexion wouldn't-"

"I hate to break it to you, but Zex isn't the guy you think he is. If you were just another one of his things, like those vases you keep breaking, he would have no problems doing whatever he wanted to you. He's a demon, Dem. The difference between him and most of the other demons out there is that he actually cares what happens to you. The other pets can't say that about their masters." There was a strange glitter in Axel's eyes that Demyx didn't like.

"I don't believe you," Demyx muttered petulantly. "Zexion said I'm just a temporary guest. He said he wouldn't get attached."

Axel greeted this assertion with incredulity. "You believe something Zex said when you were a kid over my demonic insight? He's got you on a tighter leash than I thought-"

"Get out of my house," Zexion ordered Axel firmly, appearing in the suddenly open doorway.

Axel's casual incredulity vanished in an instant, to be replaced with a look of pure fear. "Zex, I-"

"Out. Now."

Axel was out the window in an instant, leaving behind a visibly shaken Demyx.

"How did you know he was here?" Demyx asked weakly, trying to shrink.

"You are not in the habit of talking to yourself," Zexion answered, the anger and firmness completely gone from his voice.

"Oh."

"I would advise you to avoid spending time alone with Axel. He is infatuated with a blond human boy he spotted on one of his jaunts, and he may do something… regrettable. Remember, you would only be a replacement." There was no hint of judgment or concern in Zexion's voice. It sounded completely neutral, and Demyx would have been convinced of Zexion's neutrality had he not seen the demon's hands shaking slightly.

_Axel would just be a replacement too_, the unwanted voice in Demyx's head cried, but Demyx pushed it to the back of his mind. Zexion's hands were shaking. Zexion was holding himself back. But from what?

"Zexion, are you upset about something?" Demyx asked cautiously, regretting it almost immediately.

"Upset?" Zexion chuckled mirthlessly. Demyx found the sound terrifying. "What could I possibly have to be upset about? Have you ever seen me upset, Demyx?"

Once. One time I saw Zexion upset. I ran away. I was six, and I wanted to live among humans. I ran out of the house, and down the street, past demon lords and ladies, past human servants running errands, past lower class demons running shops, until I'd left Zexion's town behind. I thought if I could just get out of the town, I'd get back to the human world.

Zexion found me sobbing under a tree, asking the air over and over why I couldn't go back. Was it because the human world didn't want me? Was I not good enough to live with humans? Zexion slapped me. He told me that whether I was good enough or not had nothing to do with my current situation. Then… he hugged me, and told me not to do this again. I think he cried.

Why did I forget something like that?

"Once," Demyx answered quietly.

"Then, based on that one occasion, would you say that I am upset now?" Zexion's tone held a challenge. Demyx was at a crossroads. His answer would take him irrevocably down one path or the other.

He made his choice.

"Yes. You're upset. But I don't know why."

"You don't know…" Zexion sighed irritably, running a hand through his long bangs. "I can't spoon-feed you all the answers for the rest of your life."

"You know what, Zexion?" Demyx shot back, surprised at his sudden increase in volume. "There are some things that you can't understand unless someone tells you. I may be an idiot, but at least I admit it. There are so many things that you're afraid to admit, so instead you tell me to figure them out for myself and act like it's my fault that I don't already know!"

"Those are heavy accusations. Do you have any proof?" There was a condescending confidence in Zexion's voice that Demyx wanted to crush.

"I ran away when I was six. Do you remember that?"

"Like it was yesterday," Zexion replied complacently.

"You looked for me all day. You could have just let me run away and die." Demyx pointed out.

"What exactly does that prove?"

"When you found me, you slapped me. Then you hugged me. You cried." Demyx's confidence grew with every word, as he watched Zexion's visible eye widen. "Somewhere along the way, you got attached to me, and you refuse to admit it."

Zexion opened and closed his mouth several times without making a sound, combing his brain for some kind of excuse. He'd been relying on Demyx forgetting that particular memory. Zexion closed his mouth suddenly, pursing his lips. He was cornered. But Demyx, being Demyx, had probably only caught on thus far because of Axel. There was a way out of this.

"You're like a mentally challenged dog," Zexion countered. "It would be difficult not to feel some concern for you."

It was a slap. Demyx's nerves sang, as if he really had been slapped. He felt tears growing in the corners of his eyes, stinging.

"I don't want to be normal," Demyx whispered. "I don't want to live a normal life. I just want to be happy, but you keeping stomping on my happiness. Why won't you let me be happy? I could live this sham of a life if you'd just treat me like a human being!" The tears burst forth from Demyx's eyes, falling uncontrollably, and Demyx found himself shoving past Zexion, out of his room, out of the house, and down the road, not stopping until he'd left the town behind. Zexion was already at the tree.

"I want you to be happy," he told Demyx gently, grasping the human's upper arms and pulling him into a sitting position. "You're free. I'll send you back to the human realm."

Zexion stepped away from the limp, drenched blond, walking back toward town, where the nearest accessible rift was. Demyx reached out for the demon, but he was already out of reach.

"Zexion… Zexion!" Demyx's cry was desperate. Through his tears, he couldn't see Zexion anymore. "No. No. This is not happening." Then the fog lifted in Demyx's mind. He could stop this. He'd learned how from one of Zexion's books. He hurriedly traced the pentagram around himself in the grass. "I call upon the cloaked schemer, the master of illusion. I summon thee, Zexion! Grant my wish!"

Demyx had never seen Zexion's true form as a demon before, and his mind wasn't fit to process the sight. He would later remember feathers and violet eyes,

"What is thy wish, mortal?" Zexion's voice was silky and soft, completely different from his usual way of speaking to Demyx.

"I love you," Demyx sobbed. "Love me."

"What wilst thou givest in return?"

Demyx wiped away his tears and looked the demon in the eyes. "Myself. For the rest of my mortal life."

Zexion smiled. The first true smile Demyx had ever seen on his face, though it wasn't the face he was used to. "Thy terms are acceptable. Seal the contract."

"How?"

"Kiss me."

Demyx tried and failed to stand up. "I, uh, can't get up."

"Must I do everything for you?" Zexion smirked, and went in for the kill.

End~

AN: Happy Zemyx day!


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